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Capitalism40 quotes
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. — Adam Smith · 1776Remember that Time is Money. — Benjamin Franklin · 1748Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. — Gordon Gekko · 1987Business is war. It's dog eat dog, rat eat rat. If my competitor were drowning, I'd walk over and I'd put a hose right in his mouth. — Ray Kroc · 2016We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. — Blake · 1992The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation...That incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942All 40 quotes →Free market4 quotes
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. — Adam Smith · 1776Laissez faire does not mean: Let soulless mechanical forces operate. It means: Let each individual choose how he wants to cooperate in the social division of labor; let the consumers determine what the entrepreneurs should produce. Planning means: Let the government alone choose and enforce its rulings by the apparatus of coercion and compulsion. — Ludwig von Mises · 1949The market economy as such does not respect political frontiers. Its field is the world. — Ludwig von Mises · 1949Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the laborers, one with another, to subsist and perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution. — David Ricardo · 1817Environmental destruction3 quotes
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. — Edward Abbey · 1984There is enough in the world for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. — Frank Buchman · 1938All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all. — Thomas Pynchon · 1973Greed3 quotes
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. — Gordon Gekko · 1987A desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combined with honesty and they cannot take you astray. — Anthony Trollope · 1864Greed is all right... Greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself. — Ivan F. Boesky · 1986Life under capitalism3 quotes
All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. — Karl Marx · 1848Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942Advancing bourgeois society liquidates memory, time, recollection as irrational leftovers of the past. — Theodor Adorno · 1959Political theory3 quotes
History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition. — Milton Friedman · 1962Freedom and incentives unleash the drive and entrepreneurial genius that are the core of human progress. — Ronald Reagan · 1985Imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin · 1917Progress3 quotes
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. — Gordon Gekko · 1987Freedom and incentives unleash the drive and entrepreneurial genius that are the core of human progress. — Ronald Reagan · 1985A desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combined with honesty and they cannot take you astray. — Anthony Trollope · 1864Anti-capitalism2 quotes
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable-but then, so did the divine right of kings. — Ursula K. Le Guin · 2014The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave. — James Connolly · 1915Business2 quotes
You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you. — Cornelius Vanderbilt · 1853A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. — Henry Ford · 1919Business competition2 quotes
Business is war. It's dog eat dog, rat eat rat. If my competitor were drowning, I'd walk over and I'd put a hose right in his mouth. — Ray Kroc · 2016You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you. — Cornelius Vanderbilt · 1853Economic growth2 quotes
Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. — Edward Abbey · 1984Economic theory2 quotes
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. — Abraham Lincoln · 1861There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down. — David Ricardo · 1822Incentives2 quotes
We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. — Blake · 1992Freedom and incentives unleash the drive and entrepreneurial genius that are the core of human progress. — Ronald Reagan · 1985Labor2 quotes
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. — Abraham Lincoln · 1861There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down. — David Ricardo · 1822Profits2 quotes
There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down. — David Ricardo · 1822Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits. — David Ricardo · 1822Workers2 quotes
Naturally, the workers are perfectly free; the manufacturer does not force them to take his materials and his cards, but he says to them…"If you don't like to be frizzled in my frying-pan, you can take a walk into the fire." — Friedrich Engels · 1845Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the laborers, one with another, to subsist and perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution. — David Ricardo · 1817American ethos1 quote
Civilization and profits go hand in hand. — Calvin Coolidge · 1920Bailouts1 quote
These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel. — Abraham Lincoln · 1837Business strategy1 quote
Every piece of business strategy... Must be seen in its role in the perennial gale of creative destruction. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942Capital1 quote
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. — Abraham Lincoln · 1861Civilization1 quote
Civilization and profits go hand in hand. — Calvin Coolidge · 1920Consumerism1 quote
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. — Edward Abbey · 1984Corrosive effects of wealth1 quote
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals... The love of money as a possession—as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life—will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. — John Maynard Keynes · 1930Efficiency1 quote
Remember that Time is Money. — Benjamin Franklin · 1748Finance1 quote
Think big, think positive, never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throat. Buy low, sell high. Fear? That's the other guy's problem. Nothing you have ever experienced will prepare you for the unbridled carnage you are about to witness. Superbowl, The World Series—they don't know what pressure is. In this building, it's either kill or be killed. You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you're up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me? — Louis Winthorpe III · 1983Freedom1 quote
History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition. — Milton Friedman · 1962Human nature1 quote
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. — Gordon Gekko · 1987Imperialism1 quote
Imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin · 1917Innovation1 quote
For most of my life I refused to work at any problem unless its solution seemed to be capable of being put to commercial use. — Thomas Edison · 1917